Hugo Lemerise

Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios Group acquired Monster Closet Games (founded by Ubisoft veterans) in October last year and integrated its developers to launch a new studio in Montreal. Yesterday, this studio was shut down 8 months after launch, along with Avalanche’s New York studio, cutting 50 jobs. In an “exceptionally difficult decision” taken by Avalanche, the shutdown was “necessary to ensure a stable and sustainable future for the company”. Avalanche even expressed regret for losing 9% of its workforce but gave no updates on how it plans to help them after this. For big studios, posting on social media is easier and a one-time thing. But what about the 50 devs who are left with tougher days to come? When AAA giant (Avalanche) entered their lives last year, they promised the devs big game projects. For eight months, they worked hard on a title with Xbox, getting excited about how they would thrill gamers from different corners of the planet. But instead of receiving due credit, they are informed that they are no longer needed on the project and that the company has to lay them off to sustain themselves. If this is sad to learn, consider the sudden mental toll on these developers and the possibility of many falling prey to self-doubt. I also tried finding the impacted folks to give them a shoutout, but I can���t see any #opentowork banners except one or two. If you know of anyone who was impacted, please mention them below, and we will do everything in our power to give them maximum visibility. If you were impacted and saw this, I am listing three resources and various other ways for you to get back into the games industry ASAP. First💎 Layoff Support Kit 2.0 - https://lnkd.in/gCCXW_Wp My team and I have dedicated countless hours to curating hundreds of online game development resources so you don't have to. This comprehensive collection includes top programming boot camps, renowned game dev educators, free game assets to help you build great games, insightful podcasts, and much more. Second💎 A 100% scholarship on our $11,000 Full Stack game dev program - https://lnkd.in/gZKqNBFh If you were impacted by the recent bloodshed of layoffs, here’s a chance to Re-skill and revise your game dev knowledge with our advanced C++, OOPs, Unity, and Data Structure modules. Additionally, you will receive exclusive one-on-one mentorship from top game programmers who will help you strengthen your already solid foundations. Third💎 Our Discord Community of over 10K game devs - https://lnkd.in/gH-wZe2G Here, we listen to everyone’s take on game development, support aspiring game developers in building stronger portfolios, and solve each other's doubts. Also requesting Kelly Bender, Alexander Rehm, Caitlin Cooke, Jordan Mazer, Ruty Rutenberg, Hailey Rojas, Kevin F., Kat Craig, Ali Farha, Matt Barney, and Ash C. to help this reach all the folks who can benefit from this. #layoffsupport

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Creating games is very difficult. And building games is challenging. The process of build requires to compile the code and all the data required in the game in a specific sequence involving many dependencies. As such monitoring the outcome is essential, but not sufficent. What if we were able to predict the outcome of a build ? What if we were able to decrease the required computing resources while increasing our iteration capability ? #Ubisoft #Ubisoftlaforge #innovation

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Last night I finalized my tool for loading .csv files on the fly. I can now assign a preset choice to an animation timing (without touching the animator) to set the SynthOne of Wwise in-game. Additionally, I can use my csv files to switch between engines (Unity-Unreal) to load the SynthOne configurations, so I can work on the sound comfortably in Unity and, if a project arises in UE, retrieve my work without having to redo the settings in Unreal. I will stop development for a while; there is one more thing to address which is the randomization. Currently, you need to manually change the last two values in the CSV to configure the randomization that will be played by the CSV player (the randomization works in-game). So here are my last two scripts for the sound designer community, enjoy them, real-time synthesis is life, I've been waiting for this for years. Download link: https://lnkd.in/eQczAqaH

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Today, we will show many cool #games at #Ubiforward, including what we've been working on on #XDefiant. Warmly recommending you to watch it :) https://lnkd.in/eTyNTvU8 #games #gaming #gameindustry #ubisoft #digital #product #productmanagement #GAAS #starwars #assassinscreed

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#Ubisoft is gearing up to launch games featuring #Web3 technology this year. Nicolas Pouard Vice President of the Ubisoft Strategic Innovation Lab and head of #blockchain initiatives, is spearheading these developments. The company has broadened its blockchain efforts, forging new gaming partnerships and expanding its blockchain team. It's licensing intellectual properties to Web3 gaming firms like VeVe and Cross The Ages and collaborating with blockchain platforms such as Aleph, Flow, XPLA, and Sequence. Ubisoft is also developing Champions Tactics with Oasys, and plans to release two Web3 games to the public by the end of the year. This push into Web3 gaming positions Ubisoft at the forefront of the industry, offering fresh opportunities for growth and innovation. For the blockchain gaming community, Ubisoft’s involvement not only legitimizes the space but also drives technological advancements and broadens the market, promising enhanced gaming experiences and new interactive possibilities. Sources: GamesBeat, Dean Takahashi

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First test build for an initial demo on my audio implementation processes. I still need to mix, but I think the concept is there. It gives an idea of some of the principles I use. It's not flashy and it's not a game; it's research work on possibilities. P.S.: The video isn't interesting without the sound.

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Project "One Tool - Zero Byte Audio - Binaural" (Binaural = headphone listening = VR) A project where I use a single ultra-basic synthesizer to create all the sounds. I don't use a DAW and I don't pre-produce any sounds, everything is done in real-time, created as it happens on the screen. I still haven't figured out how to trigger the big explosions at the end, and I still need to create the basic sound for the worm laser, but I'm getting closer to my first pass at setting up the basics. There is no reverb on the explosions; it's a synthesis rendering. In short, I need to finish modeling a few sounds, then work on the behavior curves, do a second pass of sound design, and mix. #Wwise #SynthOne #ZeroAudioAsset #NoDAW #Synthesis #Realtime #Audio3D #VRAudio #VR #Unity

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I felt like explaining my audio workflow today. The equipment I use to control the quality of the sound (crack, click, noise, ...) includes Yamaha HS8. They don't embellish the sound; it's ultra-flat, which is great for monitoring. Then, when I'm in the testing phase for integration processes, I use only the VU meters. I look at how the sound behaves; I don't need precise listening. Next, I move on to the mixing phase: I use a gaming headset JBL Quantum 810 to work in stereo and binaural, then I switch the headset to 7.1 to check the surround behavior in upmix. It is important, when working for long periods, to take care of your ears. Listening to sound is tiring (even stressful for some listeners; the choice to mute the sound is frequent for users, and it's not for nothing). That's why it's important to alternate between monitoring systems, headsets, screen speakers, and Hi-Fi. The video concerns the transition of my stereo demo project to 7.1 to hear the result. The sound of the video is encoded in stereo, so you can't experience the full effect, but you can see the switch from my stereo configuration to the 7.1 upmix with the VU meters.

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We're now 23 weeks into 2024, and during this time, I've led the production of 21 gameplay feature updates at Kohaú. Our team's focus this year has been to increase our statistics, both in terms of how many concurrent users we have playing our game at all times, but also in terms of revenue. With these key points in-mind, we made a few significant changes to the way we approach updates, which has allowed us to innovate further than ever before. 𝟭. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 🤝 In the games industry, your players are the reason you make money. If your players aren't happy, you can't possibly be. This year we're focusing on communicating with our game's player-base more than ever before. We've grown our community to over 1.25 million members and at least 50% of our updates are suggestions from members of our community. Our team's close relationship with our community is unseen at any other game in our genre. 𝟮. 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 💸 We're making use of Discord's "Server Shop" feature to offer monthly subscriptions to our community. By introducing this program this year, we've increased our monthly revenue by around $2,000. We offer members who purchase these subscriptions new in-game perks every 2 weeks, which has become hugely popular. We dedicate a lot of time every month to improving these subscriptions and making them more worth it for everyone, and we've started to see this in our revenue. We currently have more premium subscribers than ever before, and the number is only increasing! We've made other small changes to the way our team approaches updates internally too, such as discussing all updates weeks in advance, and planning much further ahead than we did last year. A big part of our planning process is now analysing what people like/don't like, and making this factor a large influence in our business decisions. The big question is: have we been successful? Let's take a look at our numbers: • 1,250,000 group members on Roblox 💬 • ~200 paying monthly subscribers 💰 • 6.5M+ unique accounts played 👋 • Over 40M+ visits across all experiences 📈 Early this morning, our concurrent user count remained at over 500 despite over 50% of our player-base being from the USA or the UK. This is not luck or coincidence - our changes and innovation is reflected directly in our player counts. This year, we've cemented our spot as the most successful Roblox restaurant roleplay experience of all-time, a spot we proudly hold to date. But it's only June - we've got so much more to come! Follow Kohaú's LinkedIn page to stay up to date. 🚀

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Do you want to level up your game dev team? Do you want to learn some of the magic that makes some of the greatest games? Alex's course is a great place to start. And if you have designers on staff you think would benefit, I highly recommend this bootcamp. #bootcap #gamedesign

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Based on my experience as a Game Professional and Educator, let's discuss Game Production as a discipline. We must start by stating the Game Production's purpose and objective. A simple definition I give my students about Game Production is: Ensure the project's completion and shipping under heavy economic and productive restrictions. These restrictions are Time, Money, Experience, and Technology. For this very reason Game Production work is invisible to the players, the only evidence of success is a completed and shipped Game. Under this framework, I suggest my students to ask themselves, at the beginning of each day, the "Game Producer" question: What do you think we could do with today's available resources? I remarked to them about the present state of the aforementioned question; our available resources change every day, forcing us to pivot constantly and adjust our iterations. I hope more seasoned producers can give me feedback about these definitions. #GameProduction #GameDesign #GameEducation #HigerEducation

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We are finally done our snow shoveling midstone game right in time for the snow! This game was a 2D game made almost from scratch using SDL and C++ only. I was the lead programmer and manager for this game, my primary focus was tackling challenging programming tasks, such as, - Implementation of player movement and orientation. - Handling the spawning of various snow types, and managing their collision and deletion. - Programming the item shop, and the functionality of the items in the shop which were the shovels, elixirs, and snow. - Programming a buttons, texts, static images, and snowpiles classes that make our programming easier and follows the OOP standards rather than making everything in scenes. Beyond coding, I played a crucial role in team management, ensuring that our tasks and ideas were realistic, and assigned depending on our skill levels to make everyone comfortable. I also took charge of overseeing the codebase, verifying that it followed our coding standards and had no memory leaks. Reflecting on this project, my key takeaway was gaining a deep understanding of how video games are programmed without the support of a complete game engine like Unity or Unreal. I also learned a lot about memory management, especially learning when to manually free images and textures, and what goes on in the stack and heap. I also disovered that it is not as hard as I thought to make a simple game perform horribly. I learned a lot about the structure of game engines in general, and how common functions are used to spawn/update/and render objects. Overall The project significantly contributed to the improvement of my coding logic, pushing me out of my comfort zone and making me come up with solutions to problems we encountered on my own. and it also enhanced my SDL abilities, making me very confident with SDL, C++ and my overall programming abilities. It was a valuable and enjoyable learning experince and Im looking forward to working on more complicated projects, and 3D projects, and diving deeper into other API's such as openGL and Vulkan. This is a video showcasing the game and all its features. #sdl #cpp #cppprogramming #gamedevelopment #gameprogramming #programming #2d #engineprogramming #oop

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At the Digital Dragons 2024, I discussed the harmony between programmers and animators within the context of creating character locomotion. The result of working on this harmony is the collaboration we have undertaken with Marek Konieczny (https://vanillaloop.com/). Our complementary skills (me - coding, Marek - animating), ability to listen to each other, genuine interest in trends in game animation and openness to experimentation make developing animation systems together a pure pleasure for me. We created a Cover System in UE5, which is already available on the Epic Marketplace. This solution is built in Blueprints to be simple and enjoyable for animators and designers. The project was designed so that programmers could quickly rewrite it in C++. It's a good foundation for developing more specialized cover systems. I'm very curious to see what else will come from our collaborations 😊 . Cover System : https://lnkd.in/gdQf5txm #gamedev #animation #skeletalanimation #unrealengine #ue5

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[Please repost! 💜] Hello, #Tasmania, Did you know that we're running a Tasmanian Game Development Incubator? Well, we are. And we're getting ready to move into future rounds of the programme. Express interest here: https://lnkd.in/gRCPB2qa Here's what our newly reimagined Round 3 and beyond look like: 📚 A library of written and video content on topics ranging from starting a small business for game development, to project management for games, to pitching games, to programming with specific tools for games (e.g. Yarn Spinner, Godot, and more). 📆 At least three 1 hour mentoring sessions, where you'll have access to us, and our colleagues, to talk about your projects, business aspirations, and plans, and get feedback. 🎮 Industry sessions, including online presentations from worldwide industry figures, and connections around the world. 💰 Assistance writing applications for funding from, for example, Screen Tasmania and more. It's a simpler approach than our previous rounds, but this will allow us to serve more people, as there has been a lot of interest. 😎 Let us know you're interested here: https://lnkd.in/gRCPB2qa This round and future rounds are funded exclusively by Secret Lab. The current and previous rounds of this programme were supported by the Tasmanian Government through the Department for State Growth. Hon Madeleine Ogilvie MP, Michael Ferguson, Jeremy Rockliff, Alex Sangston, Andrew McPhail, Evan Maloney, PJ Madam, Oliver Potter, Tasmanian Game Makers Inc. Startup Tasmania TasICT ACS (Australian Computer Society) #Tasmania #GameDev #Games #GameDevelopment #Tasmanian #Hobart #Launceston #Burnie #Devonport #VideoGames #NarrativeGames #GamesIndustry #Incubator

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Is our most favourite childhood game soon to be launched? According to Bailly, a "Need for Speed: Most Wanted Remake is being release in 2024", and we can surmise it's a new version of EA Vancouver's 2005 original rather than developer Criterion Games' 2012 racer of the same name, as Bailly says she'll once again be starring as the "partner" of protagonist Sergeant Jonathan Cross. News URL: https://lnkd.in/gFnqGQZC #nfs #nfsmostwanted #gaming #game

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Play the game in your head before you code a single line. You must imagine every detail: gameplay, flow, visual style, UI, etc. ↳ The clearer your vision, the smoother the development. ↳ If you can't picture it distinctly, development will be chaotic. Because every new game starts in your head, in your imagination. So push it to the limits before spending any resources on development.

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